• Hi Guest - Come check out all of the new CP Merch Shop! Now you can support CigarPass buy purchasing hats, apparel, and more...
    Click here to visit! here...

Freezerdor

MNBrian

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2015
Messages
1,390
So I’ve been wanting to work on this project forever and I’m finally getting around to it. I run two wineadors at the moment since the relative temp in MN (and in my house) changes so much. In the winter my wife and I just wanna be warm fast so 76-80 degrees is normal. In the summer, quite the opposite so we leave it closer to ideal humi temps of 67-69.

I got this giant Kenmore freezer for free from my wife’s grandparents and always intended to turn it into a poor looking external/amazing looking internal temp and humidity controlled masterpiece, which seems a lot more challenging with a kid than it did before - ha!

But converting the basement into a play room has me moving my humi setup and it’s time to at least acclimate the freezerdor and see how she does. Cleaned her out nicely, let newspaper sit in there for two weeks to remove any strange smells, filled her up with empty boxes to start the good smells going (and see if any boxes get condensation due to using compressor instead of thermoelectric - but hoping the much more insulated freezer will hold temp much better requiring far less on-off cycles) and we’re off to the races.

Since It’ll take a lot to get these dry boxes humidified, I’m using a pan of open water with colloidal silver and two of my fan-run electric humidifiers to get things rolling. So far 2 days in and humidity has risen from 24% to low 47%. Looking good thus far!

This will be the start of a very long project. :)

1B0EC332-29ED-4E7A-849F-C626B833A8C0.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Looking good so far!!

I'll be following this a little bit. I have outgrown my current wineador but we are in an apartment while our house is being built... I am between another wineador, a larger glass fridge similar in idea to this, or building my own in wall unit between the studs like cigar aficionado featured recently.
 
Looking good so far!!

I'll be following this a little bit. I have outgrown my current wineador but we are in an apartment while our house is being built... I am between another wineador, a larger glass fridge similar in idea to this, or building my own in wall unit between the studs like cigar aficionado featured recently.

It’s the temp loss that had me going this direction. Ideally I’d like to use the empties to cover the shelving or even the walls of the unit for a very cheap but effective (and perhaps cool looking) interior. Still trying to work that part out but figured I’d better make sure it stores well before doing anything else and see how much humidity is lost on open. Maybe put in some fiberglass lift-type cabinet pieces to maintain humidity better in one section when I open it. That way all four units are connected top to bottom with grating to let air through but there’s something preventing humidity from leaving the moment I open the whole thing. Unless it ends up not being a huge issue.

We shall see!!! Let the testing begin!
 
Compressor is better than TE in my opinion....with the caveat being you need to remove the existing controls and use a stand alone controller.
This can be something you build or it can be bought, and can be as complex as your imagination is wide.

If you have time, and want to fall down the rabbit hole, look up the YouTube vids from Cigar Climatology.
 
Looking good so far!!

I'll be following this a little bit. I have outgrown my current wineador but we are in an apartment while our house is being built... I am between another wineador, a larger glass fridge similar in idea to this, or building my own in wall unit between the studs like cigar aficionado featured recently.
If you go built-in, talk to @Tall Paul he did that in his house
 
Update time.

So we've been redoing a bunch of areas in the house, particularly setting up some more secure storage for the cigars, guns, and alcohol. Not like our one year old is going anywhere fast, but just being future minded.

So now we've got a locked laundry room as a first step, and I've got two cigar storage units that also lock. After about a month getting the RH and the temp working for the freezer and getting a bunch of empty boxes loaded up to see how they held humidity, I was finally comfortable enough to move half my stock to the freezer and the other half in the wineador.

Here's the two rigs set up (and my washing machine... haha)

IMG_3811.jpg

IMG_3812.jpg

I've got around two pounds of beads at the base, and the large automated humidor in the middle shelves. Wildly, the short duration of the freezer condenser on/off cycle is actually proving to be a problem. I may need to run it even cooler than the fridge to ensure the RH doesn't peak 70 and sits comfortably between 65-68.

The electronic humidifier has a nice external readout so I don't have to open or shut the freezer to check the humidity/target humidity and temp. Just not super happy that it gets up to 70 - even if it is for a very short duration before the freezer kicks on and drops it to around 65.

IMG_3813.jpg

Here are the temp controllers set up.

IMG_3814.jpg

And here's the inside. Boxes in the door are all empties, and on the back are empties as well just hoping to hold some humidity and keep the nice cedar scent.

IMG_3815.jpg

IMG_3816.jpg

It's functional at this point - stays within the ranges appropriate (never below 60 RH and never above 70 RH for more than a minute or two) and the temp controller is as solid as ever. But I've still got my mind set on more improvements to it. I think it'd be cool to use the tops of some of the non-dress boxes to glue together shelving to lay over the top of the existing wire shelves. Would like to do something for the door as well, perhaps using cut boxes for singles and ditching the white bars. Also would like to add some internal lighting.

But we'll see. Those are projects for later. So far I'm happy with the progress.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3812.jpg
    IMG_3812.jpg
    115.6 KB · Views: 3
Top